LIGHT, AIR, AND COLOR 



81 



is something almost inexplicable about it. It 

 seems so thin, so rarefied ; and it is so scent- 

 less I had almost said breathless that it is 

 like no air at all. You breathe it without feel- 

 ing it, you look through it without being con- 

 scious of its presence. Yet here comes in the 

 contradiction. Desert air is very easily recog- 

 nized by the eyes alone. The traveller in Cal- 

 ifornia when he wakes in the morning and 

 glances out of the car-window at the air in the 

 mountain canyons, knows instantly on which 

 side of the Tehachepi Eange the train is mov- 

 ing. He knows he is crossing the Mojave. 

 The lilac-blue veiling that hangs about those 

 mountains is as recognizable as the sea air of 

 the Massachusetts shore. And, strange enough, 

 the sea breezes that blow across the deserts all 

 down the Pacific coast have no appreciable ef- 

 fect upon this air. The peninsula of Lower 

 California is practically surrounded by water, 

 but through its entire length and down the 

 shores of Sonora to Mazatlan, there is nothing 

 but that clear, dry air. 



I use the word " clear " because one can see 

 so far through this atmosphere, and yet it is 

 not clear or we should not see it so plainly. 

 There is the contradiction again. Is it perhaps 



Seeing the 

 desert air. 



Sea breezes 

 on desert. 



